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To me, it is obvious that TikTok is a tool for all kinds of evil, from exfiltrating personal information to surveillance to refining models for mass manipulatio

To me, it is obvious that TikTok is a tool for all kinds of evil, from exfiltrating personal information to surveillance to refining models for mass manipulation. It is the one app that I would never allow near one of my devices. Yet, whenever I mention the threat anywhere or to anybody, I get "you are too paranoid" or "but Facebook does it too". Most of the time I just get ignored / downvoted. Am I missing something? Does the app really have enough redeeming features to warrant the risk of using it?

dnissley 4y ago
What is the risk? I.e. what bad outcome could happen to me that impacts my day to day life? Perhaps a detailed description could help people realize what you have in mind
- elmomle 4y ago
  It is more a bad large-scale societal outcome that many are worried about. It is a massive CCP-linked propaganda organ; even if content is generated by users, the way in which it is surfaced and promoted is entirely controlled by ByteDance (-> CCP). Furthermore, all sorts of social engineering, spear phishing, and blackmail by a potentially-hostile foreign government are made possible. But if you want something to worry about as an individual, consider China's increasing global reach and whether the CCP could at any point use their massive reach to systematically make life less pleasant for you if you express views contrary to the party's.
toqy 4y ago
I don't personally use TikTok, but I'm not sure that I'd care much if they know that I like to watch videos about pottery or gaming or whatever. Google / YouTube certainly knows already.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  1. They collect information on what interests you, makes you upset, and engages you on an extremely granular level. Unlike YT/Google, they push content to you (which you watch/reject)—they can refine a model of your preferences and personality quickly. 2. They push you to engage with that content, leaving comments and sending messages. 3. They have the capability to make you watch content that they know you'll like with the express goal of getting you to react to it. 4. TikTok videos are often recorded in personal spaces, giving insight into individuals' lives and leaking personal information (partners, children, pets, etc.). 5. The app itself can collect information about you and your device, including any information it may have access to you through overly-broad permission collection.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    1. Do you use TT? I find the content is very rarely rage-driven, whereas somehow that seems to be the primary flavor of twitter. 2+3. Why should I worry that a company is serving me stuff I actually like in hopes I'll interact with it? Isn't that the social contract of digital advertising, except TT is actually delivering value to the consumer? 4+5. That's just table stakes for the industry.
    - bastawhiz 4y ago
      Getting you to engage is getting you to provide information you wouldn't have provided unprompted. By delivering value, they're getting you to reveal more about yourself. "Table stakes" and "a tool for surveillance" are not at all mutually exclusive. Which is all the more reason to be concerned about Mudge's suggestions that foreign bad actors were employed at Twitter. Make no mistake: social media is a tool that can be used for malicious purposes.
nirvgorilla 4y ago
Nope. It blows. Monitors are horizontal. Televisions are horizontal. People's EYES are horizontal. All of those garbage tiktok videos are vertical. No. Under no circumstance - NO.
- 2bitencryption 4y ago
  > Monitors are horizontal. Televisions are horizontal. People's EYES are horizontal. smartphones are vertical
  - nirvgorilla 4y ago
    All of the best movies and television shows you've ever seen are horizontal. There will never be a great movie released in vertical video. Mark my words. Note the time. VVS - https://youtu.be/dechvhb0Meo https://youtu.be/dechvhb0Meo
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      TikTok isn't about movies, it's about short videos pulling in your attention. They aim for the mobile phone. Also if a video is showing a single person (standup comedy?) vertical can show them closer, as people (mostly) are vertical. But yes, for a full movie, where you have horizontal camera movement, a vertical screen gives too little orientation for following the movement. In painting and photography horizontal and vertical coexist for millenia. Based on the motive and purpose.
    - cwkoss 4y ago
      Don't watch movies on tiktok then, lol
    - fragmede 4y ago
      So noted, but I suppose you'll define which movies are great and which ones don't count? TikTok's popularity demonstrates a demand for vertical video, despite how much you don't want there to be, simply because that's how people are viewing video - on their smartphone. Even Netflix is doing vertical video clips for previews. My prediction is we'll see a mainstream movies be recut/reframed to be vertical on Netflix/other online streaming service simply to complete with TikTok's content farms.
martinsmit 4y ago
Feature-wise, the experience of using it is very streamlined. More importantly, it's where a substantial proportion of youth culture is found nowadays, so to keep up with and contribute to it is to be on the app.
stusmall 4y ago
Some people just don't care about this bigger picture. They aren't a direct target and they are already apart of so many mass analytics models that it just doesn't seem to matter anymore. It's a jaded side effect of a sleazy business model that's become pretty common. I won't use it and have no interest in it. It just seems like another noisy app filled with misinformation but also poses a real risk at a geopolitical scale. But on the other hand, I get why people just want to connect with other humans and see a skateboarding dog.
dicomdan 4y ago
You get downvoted by Sino-Russian bots. In real life people won't disagree with your point to the same extent as you would see online.
- 1337biz 4y ago
  The fundamental issue for me is that I never plan to step foot on Chinese/Russia soil or get into any relationship with their government. That way their spying feels less relevant to me than US spying which just could put me for arbitrary reasons on a list and most western governments would comply.
  - girvo 4y ago
    If you are not Chinese, then yeah fair enough. If you are, the CCP kidnaps them to take them home for putting a toe out of line. And by you and I participating in the CCP’s surveillance apparatus, we make it easier for them to pounce on those who are trying to steer clear of the CCP, sadly, the ones who the CCP likes to kidnap and bring home to torture.
- deepspace 4y ago
  I noticed that you are getting downvoted for pointing out the bots. My post had an interesting vote pattern. It initially received lots of upvotes, but then got downvoted to about 1/2 its peak vote count over the next few hours, presumably by bots / shills.
systemvoltage 4y ago
Also DJI app that requires GPS lock in and internet connection to operate drones owned by hundreds of thousands of US citizens. Hell, even something off brand from the back streets of Guangdong, something like a Yawei dashcam app wants 1) Location access 2) Contacts and 3) Photos app access. So it can “geo tag your friends in a car’s dashcam stream and bluetooth it to your photos library”. The cat is out of the box. It must be resolved through a cat exterminator at the highest levels of Gov, forcing Apple and Google to delist this stuff. Even the best and highly educated citizenry is not immune to this; let alone the rest of USA and the west. Micro actions from individuals wouldn’t be sufficient. No harm meant to cats or any of our furry friends.
- sneak 4y ago
  Anything that needs to scan wifi (such as to talk to a drone) shows up as location access, because the list of visible APs and their relative signal strengths is the same thing as your location.
- artificial 4y ago
  I think there's another option which is the devices that run the apps are user agents. Bunk geo data, bunk contacts, the app shouldn't be the wiser. This will take legislation to enact which moves at a snails pace. Hopefully SV will enable granular controls to pollute this data.
creata 4y ago
But Facebook does do it, too, don't they? Why not stop using both?
- throwawayyusa 4y ago
  The FTC regulates domestic tech companies' collection and usage of location data. I can assure you this is not the case for overseas companies.
  - snehk 4y ago
    Overseas companies don't have to follow US laws? That's completely false.
    - throwawayyusa 4y ago
      I'm pretty sure the FTC ruling against Facebook only affects Facebook. Do you think anyone in our government is in a position to stand up against China right now?
mrd3v0 4y ago
Facebook is more legally scrutinised by almost every concern out there. These replies are not reflective of the legal policies and measures taken in the west against Facebook. P.S: I am not saying they are sufficient.
walrus01 4y ago
> I get "you are too paranoid" I also get "But all the big US tech companies do it too.." Frankly I would much rather that all my private data/whatever go to the hands of the NSA and/or CSE, GCHQ than the Ministry of State Security in Beijing. At least I have a moderate level of confidence in my actual free speech rights, civil rights and legal rights in the US and Canadian legal systems. Every domestic Chinese company with "cloud" based whatever is legally obligated to set up a database replication export to the MSS. With active engineering cooperation to make it work correctly.
- sneak 4y ago
  NSA can refer it to federal police who can use it for parallel construction at home to imprison you if they wish to retaliate against you for something they don’t like. CCP can’t do that. Surveillance by police that have jurisdiction over you is more dangerous than those who do not.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    - sneak 4y ago
      That’s not the experience of Roger Ver, who was imprisoned in inhumane conditions for speaking negatively about BATFE agents at a conference in the US. Same for Assange. Retaliation for protected expression happens all the time in the USA.
  - girvo 4y ago
    I mean, the CCP can straight up kidnap me internationally if they want to. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-19/china-operations-to-force-fugitives-back/100747234 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-19/china-operations-to-f...
    - sneak 4y ago
      So can the CIA.
FridayoLeary 4y ago
Probably not. But that does sound a lot like FB and Google. But they are wildly popular and provide entertainment so it could be everybody is perfectly happy being manipulated. I think everybody will move on from tiktok in a few years time anyway.
colpabar 4y ago
It's the latest and greatest in terms of attention grabbing/stealing, so people get defensive about it because they spend lots of time using it. I get annoyed with the "but facebook does it too" argument as well. I don't really like throwing around the "foreign country disinformation campaign" accusations, but whenever tiktok comes up on this site it's hard to imagine regular people saying some of the things that are said about why it's "no less trustworthy" than american social media companies. Even with this article, people will respond with "well, they probably weren't surveilling me because I don't have anything to hide." And then I show them the story about the cops that used social media to track a woman who went across state lines to get an abortion, and they get really mad.
Forgeties79 4y ago
>Am I missing something? Does the app really have enough redeeming features to warrant the risk of using it? In my experience (sometimes depending on how it's stated but not always) people see these kinds of comments as a commentary on _them_ specifically. It often doesn't matter what your intention is, they just feel somewhat defensive/challenged, like you're accusing them of poor judgement. So they blow the comment off or even push back to make themselves feel better about their decision. I understand this comment could be seen as pretentious but I sincerely understand why someone would feel defensive. It's very easy to see it as commentary on their judgment and values, especially in a country like the US that is so focused on being individualistic/protecting individual rights. Most people don't want to be accused of not caring about their privacy. It makes them feel shallow and talked down to, once again, regardless of intent.
cwkoss 4y ago
After using TikTok, twitter feels like using a windows 95 computer after using modern operating systems. American social media feels way too parasocial, untargeted and clunky to me now. Tiktok has better content, the fyp learns what you like and so it surprises and delights. I think american social media has been overly focused on the top 1% of content producers and advertisers, so the consumer experience has languished at their expense. TT is really a consumer-first design, and users get visibility even without followers - it actually connects people so it feels a lot less like shouting into the void. It's cool to find a good post from a stranger that nobody has liked or commented on yet - liking that feels impactful to that person. American social media pretty much only shows you stuff from who you follow or advertisers, so any interaction you have is easy to get lost in the noise. (Also, for whatever reason, I see a lot less angry shouting on TT, whereas twitter feels increasingly like the 2 minutes of hate from 1984) The ease of posting leads to the content being much less polished: instagram feels like my friends are doing PR to convince the people they know that they are cool/beautiful/successful sometimes - just feels fake and distant to me. Through TT I've found a bunch of people with the same interests and sense of humor as me, and I enjoy getting little glimpses into their lives and vice versa. I think some amount of the 'tiktok is evil' meme is propaganda rooted in sinophobia, tech company PR counterprogramming, and american quasi-journalist influencers fearing their platforms are dissolving. About 2/3 of the criticism I've read seems hypocritical (based on industry standards) and alarmist, so it makes me more skeptical of the remaining 1/3. Facebook and google being cozy with the feds that have power over me scares me a lot more than the CCP - who can do little to impact me directly.
- ev1 4y ago
  > (Also, for whatever reason, I see a lot less angry shouting on TT, whereas twitter feels increasingly like the 2 minutes of hate from 1984) There is an oddly specific reason for this: just about everything that might be controversial is likely filtered away into bubbles. People will spell gay as gae, use accent marks and spaces, all sorts of things because not doing so will kill your upload pretty much. Tiktok will remove users from being featured if they look abnormal or ugly or low quality, afaik.
  - 4y ago

dnissley 4y ago

What is the risk? I.e. what bad outcome could happen to me that impacts my day to day life? Perhaps a detailed description could help people realize what you have in mind

elmomle 4y ago
It is more a bad large-scale societal outcome that many are worried about. It is a massive CCP-linked propaganda organ; even if content is generated by users, the way in which it is surfaced and promoted is entirely controlled by ByteDance (-> CCP). Furthermore, all sorts of social engineering, spear phishing, and blackmail by a potentially-hostile foreign government are made possible. But if you want something to worry about as an individual, consider China's increasing global reach and whether the CCP could at any point use their massive reach to systematically make life less pleasant for you if you express views contrary to the party's.

toqy 4y ago

I don't personally use TikTok, but I'm not sure that I'd care much if they know that I like to watch videos about pottery or gaming or whatever. Google / YouTube certainly knows already.

bastawhiz 4y ago
1. They collect information on what interests you, makes you upset, and engages you on an extremely granular level. Unlike YT/Google, they push content to you (which you watch/reject)—they can refine a model of your preferences and personality quickly. 2. They push you to engage with that content, leaving comments and sending messages. 3. They have the capability to make you watch content that they know you'll like with the express goal of getting you to react to it. 4. TikTok videos are often recorded in personal spaces, giving insight into individuals' lives and leaking personal information (partners, children, pets, etc.). 5. The app itself can collect information about you and your device, including any information it may have access to you through overly-broad permission collection.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  1. Do you use TT? I find the content is very rarely rage-driven, whereas somehow that seems to be the primary flavor of twitter. 2+3. Why should I worry that a company is serving me stuff I actually like in hopes I'll interact with it? Isn't that the social contract of digital advertising, except TT is actually delivering value to the consumer? 4+5. That's just table stakes for the industry.
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    Getting you to engage is getting you to provide information you wouldn't have provided unprompted. By delivering value, they're getting you to reveal more about yourself. "Table stakes" and "a tool for surveillance" are not at all mutually exclusive. Which is all the more reason to be concerned about Mudge's suggestions that foreign bad actors were employed at Twitter. Make no mistake: social media is a tool that can be used for malicious purposes.

nirvgorilla 4y ago

Nope. It blows. Monitors are horizontal. Televisions are horizontal. People's EYES are horizontal. All of those garbage tiktok videos are vertical. No. Under no circumstance - NO.

2bitencryption 4y ago
> Monitors are horizontal. Televisions are horizontal. People's EYES are horizontal. smartphones are vertical
- nirvgorilla 4y ago
  All of the best movies and television shows you've ever seen are horizontal. There will never be a great movie released in vertical video. Mark my words. Note the time. VVS - https://youtu.be/dechvhb0Meo https://youtu.be/dechvhb0Meo
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    TikTok isn't about movies, it's about short videos pulling in your attention. They aim for the mobile phone. Also if a video is showing a single person (standup comedy?) vertical can show them closer, as people (mostly) are vertical. But yes, for a full movie, where you have horizontal camera movement, a vertical screen gives too little orientation for following the movement. In painting and photography horizontal and vertical coexist for millenia. Based on the motive and purpose.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    Don't watch movies on tiktok then, lol
  - fragmede 4y ago
    So noted, but I suppose you'll define which movies are great and which ones don't count? TikTok's popularity demonstrates a demand for vertical video, despite how much you don't want there to be, simply because that's how people are viewing video - on their smartphone. Even Netflix is doing vertical video clips for previews. My prediction is we'll see a mainstream movies be recut/reframed to be vertical on Netflix/other online streaming service simply to complete with TikTok's content farms.

martinsmit 4y ago

Feature-wise, the experience of using it is very streamlined. More importantly, it's where a substantial proportion of youth culture is found nowadays, so to keep up with and contribute to it is to be on the app.

stusmall 4y ago

Some people just don't care about this bigger picture. They aren't a direct target and they are already apart of so many mass analytics models that it just doesn't seem to matter anymore. It's a jaded side effect of a sleazy business model that's become pretty common. I won't use it and have no interest in it. It just seems like another noisy app filled with misinformation but also poses a real risk at a geopolitical scale. But on the other hand, I get why people just want to connect with other humans and see a skateboarding dog.

dicomdan 4y ago

You get downvoted by Sino-Russian bots. In real life people won't disagree with your point to the same extent as you would see online.

1337biz 4y ago
The fundamental issue for me is that I never plan to step foot on Chinese/Russia soil or get into any relationship with their government. That way their spying feels less relevant to me than US spying which just could put me for arbitrary reasons on a list and most western governments would comply.
- girvo 4y ago
  If you are not Chinese, then yeah fair enough. If you are, the CCP kidnaps them to take them home for putting a toe out of line. And by you and I participating in the CCP’s surveillance apparatus, we make it easier for them to pounce on those who are trying to steer clear of the CCP, sadly, the ones who the CCP likes to kidnap and bring home to torture.
deepspace 4y ago
I noticed that you are getting downvoted for pointing out the bots. My post had an interesting vote pattern. It initially received lots of upvotes, but then got downvoted to about 1/2 its peak vote count over the next few hours, presumably by bots / shills.

systemvoltage 4y ago

Also DJI app that requires GPS lock in and internet connection to operate drones owned by hundreds of thousands of US citizens. Hell, even something off brand from the back streets of Guangdong, something like a Yawei dashcam app wants 1) Location access 2) Contacts and 3) Photos app access. So it can “geo tag your friends in a car’s dashcam stream and bluetooth it to your photos library”. The cat is out of the box. It must be resolved through a cat exterminator at the highest levels of Gov, forcing Apple and Google to delist this stuff. Even the best and highly educated citizenry is not immune to this; let alone the rest of USA and the west. Micro actions from individuals wouldn’t be sufficient. No harm meant to cats or any of our furry friends.

sneak 4y ago
Anything that needs to scan wifi (such as to talk to a drone) shows up as location access, because the list of visible APs and their relative signal strengths is the same thing as your location.
artificial 4y ago
I think there's another option which is the devices that run the apps are user agents. Bunk geo data, bunk contacts, the app shouldn't be the wiser. This will take legislation to enact which moves at a snails pace. Hopefully SV will enable granular controls to pollute this data.

creata 4y ago

But Facebook does do it, too, don't they? Why not stop using both?

throwawayyusa 4y ago
The FTC regulates domestic tech companies' collection and usage of location data. I can assure you this is not the case for overseas companies.
- snehk 4y ago
  Overseas companies don't have to follow US laws? That's completely false.
  - throwawayyusa 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure the FTC ruling against Facebook only affects Facebook. Do you think anyone in our government is in a position to stand up against China right now?

mrd3v0 4y ago

Facebook is more legally scrutinised by almost every concern out there. These replies are not reflective of the legal policies and measures taken in the west against Facebook. P.S: I am not saying they are sufficient.

walrus01 4y ago

> I get "you are too paranoid" I also get "But all the big US tech companies do it too.." Frankly I would much rather that all my private data/whatever go to the hands of the NSA and/or CSE, GCHQ than the Ministry of State Security in Beijing. At least I have a moderate level of confidence in my actual free speech rights, civil rights and legal rights in the US and Canadian legal systems. Every domestic Chinese company with "cloud" based whatever is legally obligated to set up a database replication export to the MSS. With active engineering cooperation to make it work correctly.

sneak 4y ago
NSA can refer it to federal police who can use it for parallel construction at home to imprison you if they wish to retaliate against you for something they don’t like. CCP can’t do that. Surveillance by police that have jurisdiction over you is more dangerous than those who do not.
- walrus01 4y ago
  - sneak 4y ago
    That’s not the experience of Roger Ver, who was imprisoned in inhumane conditions for speaking negatively about BATFE agents at a conference in the US. Same for Assange. Retaliation for protected expression happens all the time in the USA.
- girvo 4y ago
  I mean, the CCP can straight up kidnap me internationally if they want to. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-19/china-operations-to-force-fugitives-back/100747234 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-19/china-operations-to-f...
  - sneak 4y ago
    So can the CIA.

FridayoLeary 4y ago

Probably not. But that does sound a lot like FB and Google. But they are wildly popular and provide entertainment so it could be everybody is perfectly happy being manipulated. I think everybody will move on from tiktok in a few years time anyway.

colpabar 4y ago

It's the latest and greatest in terms of attention grabbing/stealing, so people get defensive about it because they spend lots of time using it. I get annoyed with the "but facebook does it too" argument as well. I don't really like throwing around the "foreign country disinformation campaign" accusations, but whenever tiktok comes up on this site it's hard to imagine regular people saying some of the things that are said about why it's "no less trustworthy" than american social media companies. Even with this article, people will respond with "well, they probably weren't surveilling me because I don't have anything to hide." And then I show them the story about the cops that used social media to track a woman who went across state lines to get an abortion, and they get really mad.

Forgeties79 4y ago

>Am I missing something? Does the app really have enough redeeming features to warrant the risk of using it? In my experience (sometimes depending on how it's stated but not always) people see these kinds of comments as a commentary on _them_ specifically. It often doesn't matter what your intention is, they just feel somewhat defensive/challenged, like you're accusing them of poor judgement. So they blow the comment off or even push back to make themselves feel better about their decision. I understand this comment could be seen as pretentious but I sincerely understand why someone would feel defensive. It's very easy to see it as commentary on their judgment and values, especially in a country like the US that is so focused on being individualistic/protecting individual rights. Most people don't want to be accused of not caring about their privacy. It makes them feel shallow and talked down to, once again, regardless of intent.

cwkoss 4y ago

After using TikTok, twitter feels like using a windows 95 computer after using modern operating systems. American social media feels way too parasocial, untargeted and clunky to me now. Tiktok has better content, the fyp learns what you like and so it surprises and delights. I think american social media has been overly focused on the top 1% of content producers and advertisers, so the consumer experience has languished at their expense. TT is really a consumer-first design, and users get visibility even without followers - it actually connects people so it feels a lot less like shouting into the void. It's cool to find a good post from a stranger that nobody has liked or commented on yet - liking that feels impactful to that person. American social media pretty much only shows you stuff from who you follow or advertisers, so any interaction you have is easy to get lost in the noise. (Also, for whatever reason, I see a lot less angry shouting on TT, whereas twitter feels increasingly like the 2 minutes of hate from 1984) The ease of posting leads to the content being much less polished: instagram feels like my friends are doing PR to convince the people they know that they are cool/beautiful/successful sometimes - just feels fake and distant to me. Through TT I've found a bunch of people with the same interests and sense of humor as me, and I enjoy getting little glimpses into their lives and vice versa. I think some amount of the 'tiktok is evil' meme is propaganda rooted in sinophobia, tech company PR counterprogramming, and american quasi-journalist influencers fearing their platforms are dissolving. About 2/3 of the criticism I've read seems hypocritical (based on industry standards) and alarmist, so it makes me more skeptical of the remaining 1/3. Facebook and google being cozy with the feds that have power over me scares me a lot more than the CCP - who can do little to impact me directly.

ev1 4y ago
> (Also, for whatever reason, I see a lot less angry shouting on TT, whereas twitter feels increasingly like the 2 minutes of hate from 1984) There is an oddly specific reason for this: just about everything that might be controversial is likely filtered away into bubbles. People will spell gay as gae, use accent marks and spaces, all sorts of things because not doing so will kill your upload pretty much. Tiktok will remove users from being featured if they look abnormal or ugly or low quality, afaik.
- 4y ago